Cloud Security Issues Every Business Should Protect Against
Cloud computing has been a revolution for the IT industry. With cloud services, computing resources are more affordable, more scalable and they make it possible for organizations to access resources from anywhere.
As beneficial as cloud computing has been, it has come with new security issues that either did not exist or were not as much of a threat before. Part of what makes cloud computing so great for businesses also makes it an attractive target for criminals. Being able to access resources over the internet is great, but it means that criminals might be able to attempt to infiltrate your resources over the internet as well.
This might sound alarming, but that is why we have DevOps security. With the right tools and security practices, you can protect against most threats with no problem. However, a big part of that is understanding the types of threats your organization may face. In this post, we are going to look at some of the more common cloud security risks.
Common Cloud Attacks
If you have resources in the cloud, they could be the target of an attack. Whether you launch an app for your customers or employees, have sensitive files in the cloud or use it for other internal purposes, you need to protect against cloud attacks.
The following are some of the risks a cloud network may face:
Data Loss
Data loss can be really damaging to a business. When we talk about data loss, we are referring to data that is deleted or in some way rendered irretrievable. For many businesses, it can take years to recover from a data loss event. In many cases, it may even cause the entire business to fail. For that reason, it is something you need to protect against.
Human error is one of the most common causes of data loss. It may also result from equipment damage or failure. Disasters also account for a number of data loss events. There could also be issues with malware or software corruption.
Having backups is one of the best ways to protect against data loss. Businesses also need to train employees for best practices to avoid data loss events. Along with that, Infrastructure as Code security tools can be great for detecting misconfigurations that could lead to data loss.
Data Breach
Organizations often store and use sensitive data in their cloud systems. Whether it is valuable internal data or the sensitive personal information of your clients or customers, you do not want it falling into the wrong hands. Along with having direct financial costs, a data breach can be very costly as it concerns your reputation. With some of the biggest data breaches coming in recent years, this is a threat that should be on the radar of every organization.
Of course, you want to train users in the best practices for protecting data from a breach, but DevSecOps is on the front line of protecting your cloud computing from unauthorized access. One measure is to set up protocols for monitoring and authenticating logins. With the right cloud security tools, your system can automatically detect unauthorized or suspicious access attempts.
Denial of Service Attacks
Protecting data from loss or a breach is important, but there are other security risks. One type of risk is a denial of service (DoS) attack. With this type of attack, a malicious actor attempts to render your cloud resources inaccessible to legitimate users. Someone might attempt this because they feel like they have something against your organization. Regardless of why they make the attack, it can make it so employees or customers cannot use the services supported by the cloud resources.
While there are many ways a criminal might try to implement this type of attack, one of the more common methods is flooding. With flooding, the idea is to flood the system with activity in an attempt to overwhelm the bandwidth or computing resources. With all of the resources being taken up by illegitimate activity, it makes it so legitimate users cannot access the system.
This is another area where DevSecOps can be important. With the right configurations, you can effectively protect against most denial of service attacks. One common method is to limit the number of attempts per IP address. Another feature to protect against this type of attack is to add layers for the authentication and validation for users trying to access the system.
Once you understand the threats, it is easier to protect against them. With a clear picture of what could happen, you can implement measures to protect against the worst-case scenarios that can be a threat to cloud computing. Much of this comes down to having the right tools, developing plans for dealing with an active threat and educating users on the best practices for avoiding many of the most common issues.
